Tuesday, December 16, 2014

It’s become a yearly tradition for Book Dirt to feature the strangest calendars published for the upcoming year, and it seems as if the entries are a little more bizarre each December. While it may be that the world just getsweirder as time goes by, some of the credit lies in the curation. Having just about seen it all at this point, your dedicated blogmistress has to dig that much deeper each time. Nude archaeologists? Seen it! Sexy Putin? (Yawn.) Women covered in milk? That was soooo last year.

Click the links for ordering information if you’re somehow compelled to give one of these calendars to someone you have confusing feelings about.

1. Puppies With Guns

Some of the biggest sellers in calendars feature weaponry (usually toted by someone about to bust out of her bikini top). Well, someone smart noticed that puppies are also a favorite, and stuck the two together, much in the same way the commercials tell us that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were born.“So what, you hate puppies,” says the Kickstarter page: “You still like guns!” Pre-ordering has ended, but the mastermind is printing some extras to sell (Puppies With Guns)

2. Shades of Play: Steamy Word-Search Puzzles

It's probably hard to imagine anything sexier than a desk calendar, but you know what’s even hotter? Word searches. The breathless searching, the erotic curves of the pen marks … even the dirtiest Sudoku seems vanilla in comparison. (Amazon)

3. New York City Taxi Drivers

There may be some unexpected contenders for the nickname “New York’s finest” once this 2015 calendar hits the streets. In fact, leave the men in uniform for women without imagination. If you dig chest hair and a bit of a roll (not the bakery kind), you’ll be in heaven. (Shopify)

4. Emotionally Unavailable Guys

Hang this calendar on your wall, and it’s almost like having an actual emotionally unavailable guy in your life—though it might be slightly more communicative. Each month features a different guy, complete with a bio, and an explanation/defense of why he lives his life the way he does. (Amazon)

5. Sock Monkey Kama Sutra

The Congress of the Cow has never been so adorable! Try a new position each month—just be sure you have safe socks. (Amazon)

6. Bavarian Farmers Association’s Hot Potatoes

Potatoes aren’t one of vegetables more frequently associated with prurient thoughts, which is strange, considering that they’re the dirtiest. The potato farmers of Bavaria have released a wall calendar featuring twelve women (many of them literal farmer’s daughters) in various stages of undress while in proximity to tubers in their various forms (one young lady is buried in potato chips). You’ll need to know some German if you’re serious about ordering. (Bavarian Farmers Association.)

7. Dull Men of Great Britain

Even if you’ve got a weak heart, you should be able to handle this assortment of boring Brits—that is, unless you’ve got a soft spot for milk bottle-collecting or roundabout appreciation. (Amazon)

8. Cats in Sweaters

You’ve got to appreciate this calendar, if only for the fact that you know the photography team is covered in claw wounds and missing various eyes. Totally worth it. If they could survive the be-sweatering, you can survive the cuteness. (Amazon)

9. A Year of Mathematics

Just in case you thought it couldn’t get any more dull than those old men from Great Britain. Couldn’t they at least have juxtaposed the formulas with some attractive models or adorable baby animals? It’s like they don’t even want to sell calendars. (Amazon)

10. Nude Artists as Pandas

Art F City figures that if you want to get people to donate to your art blog, the best course of action is to (un)dress up a bunch of artists like pandas and photograph them. So that’s what they did.(Art F City)

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

I've got a review over at Hellnotes.com of Jon Bassoff's latest psycho-noir Factory Town, and I'd love for you to take a look.You might remember that Bassoff's Corrosion was one of my top reads of last year, and I gave Factory Town a brief write-up in my Halloween round-up recently.

If that's enough to sell you on it, you can peruse the ordering info by clicking below. Otherwise, check out my full review at Hellnotes, and let me know what you think. I'd love some visitors over there (and the issue with commenting appears to be fixed).

About Me

I'm a freelance magazine writer and web ghostwriter with bylines in a slew of newsstand magazines. I'm a writer of both serious essays (Smithsonian) and oddball humor (Cracked). My current obsession is lost horror films, and I'm busily finishing a book on the subject—an expansion of a feature article for Rue Morgue magazine that was nominated for article of the year in the Rondo Hatton Awards for excellence in classic horror research. I'm this year's recipient of the Horror Writer's Association's Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writing. I'm also the founder and host of Knoxferatu, a silent horror film event in Knoxville, TN. You can find my most recent writing in the book Under My Thumb: Songs That Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, to which I contributed a chapter on murder ballads (selected by Vogue magazine as one of the best books of 2017 in their year-end roundup).